Part Four
Anita Susuri: Let’s go back to the trial…
Adem Vokshi: To the trial, yes. It was interesting, it felt good, I felt good when, as far as I remember, the defendant Azem Vllasi at the time got up and in the name of all the other defendants expressed condolences for my father’s murder. Maybe someone even thought that the position of the defendants became more difficult but I don’t believe it did because we were familiar with the mentality of those judges. I was even really familiar with their mentality and those judges felt bad for what had happened to me because they didn’t take it as an intentional murder, but as an accidental one. Even though that murder was intentional. With the intention to scare us, the lawyers, and to eliminate a person who had been calming the children protests happening every day in Peja.
And then, on the judges panel was Ismet Emra, he was the presiding judge. Another member of the panel was Jusuf Mejzini, a senior judge. Shaban Binaku, a former miner and a wonderful man, who at the time was very ill, and we would meet often with Uncle Shaban and beg of him – now he is deceased – beg of him, “Please remain in good health until the trial is over.” Because there was another judge who would have replaced him. He was muslim, and we were very afraid of him because he used to be on Committees at work and we were all very afraid of him. There was another judge from Montenegro, Milutin Zubov, and he had a level-headed attitude.
So, we really hoped and believed that the final verdict would be fair and that they [the miners] would be cleared of all charges. Especially when at the same time Slovenian leadership had asked for the release of Azem Vllasi and the group. There were big protests in Croatia in support of the miners. There were protests, there were protests… I remember there was a doctor who protested through a strike, specifically to free the miners. Now I’ve forgotten his name, I can’t remember, but I know it very well. On top of it all, the global public had their eyes on this trial.
There were lawyers from Slovenia, Croatia, [and] Macedonia that were part of the trial. They were the lawyers that together with us defended the miners. They were Doctor Miha, no, Doctor Peter Ceferin. He was Miha Kozić with whom they met in Vienna. And then there was the Head of the Chamber… back then he wasn’t, yes, he was when I met with him, he was the Head of the Slovenian Chamber. There was Danilo Canović, from Belgrade. There was Želko Olujić, a lawyer from Zagreb. He later became Chief Prosecutor of the State of Zagreb when Croatia became independent, etc, etc. So, all of the global opinion was engaged there [on the trial].
I’m sure this [international attention] contributed to cooling down the [trial’s] atmosphere, and when there was no proof, how could you sentence these people with no evidence? Because then what was happening in the trial would come to light. So, there’s no evidence, so how could you sentence these people? Also, I do not believe that there was any suggestion made by the government to release these men, but surely there was no suggestion that these men should be punished. Fortunately, in the end, the miners were released, after 14 months of detention.
Anita Susuri: Do you remember that day?
Adem Vokshi: Yes, of course.
Anita Susuri: What was it like?
Adem Vokshi: So many, so many, so many (smiles) throughout Mitrovica. I don’t know, now Mitrovica seems small when I think about the amount of people that came out to welcome and applaud him [Azem Vllasi]. And then the Serbs hid behind windows and only watched, fearing what was going to happen, you know. This was it.
Anita Susuri: What was it like during the session, when it [the verdict] was read… because I know that most people didn’t expect they would get off?
Adem Vokshi: They didn’t expect it, they didn’t. Yes, it was, honestly very enthusiastic. Even while going out, I was with my colleague Xhyran Dema, when we went out, the guys from the State Security were asking for those cards {explains with hands} which we used to get into the trial. And yes, they took it from Xhyran and I took it back. I said, “Bring it here,” I said, “I kept it for six months,” I said, “I will keep it as a souvenir.” I said, “Put it in your pocket, Xhyran. Don’t give it to them” (laughs). And they hushed because they were also shocked about the verdict and their attitudes softened.
Anita Susuri: I’m interested to know if they had been sentenced, in what manner and how many years would they have gotten?
Adem Vokshi: Listen, I was in a trial in 1982, a couple of months after I switched to a lawyer, I defended Halil Alidema, have you heard about Halil Alidema? [addresses the interviewer] He, his fault was that he was still a target of the regime. They gave him a political leaflet but they threw it from outside, [it was the] State Security [who did it], no one else. And he took it, he read it, and he took it to the basement to place it in a stove down there, to hide it. Instead of burning it, to hide it. They knew that he had it [the leaflet], so they came to take him and they sentenced him to eleven years in prison. In that trial they sentenced Ukshin Hoti to nine years, etc, etc. There, this is it.
Them [the miners] too, if they had been found guilty, a long sentence would have awaited them. Let me not assume, but several years. But, fortunately the [political] climate changed. Back when Halil Alidema got sentenced, at the time it was total darkness. All of ‘82, even the press did not care, not [about] these guys, not [about] those guys. At the end of the day, the press was destructive at the time.
Anita Susuri: I’m also interested to know, I mean after the trial I think there was a risk for them [the group of the defendants] to be jailed again or for them to get something out of it. Do you remember that? There was this fear too, I think it pushed Avdi Uka and some others to leave the country. I think this was it.
Adem Vokshi: Listen, when the court comes to whatever verdict, each party has the right to appeal. If the verdict was to free them, then the prosecutor, the late Spaso Zanfirovic, had the right to file an appeal, to ask for the verdict to be changed and for them to be found guilty. That was the fear. But it wasn’t a fear that was that reasonable because the court of five judges freed you, they didn’t just do that for nothing. And he [the prosecutor] could’ve filed any complaint, but it wouldn’t really change anything. He could’ve only returned the case to trial again for a second time. In that case, there was a risk for them to be sentenced. Without that complaint there wasn’t a risk. I didn’t expect a risk even if the prosecutor filed a complaint.
Anita Susuri: How did the ‘90s go for you? I can say it was a difficult time period when most people were fired from their jobs.
Adem Vokshi: To be honest, I had a lot of cases [representing] the miners, the Trepça workers, the workers of the Medical Center, and the Municipality, where they were fired. I remember the doctors who were fired on September 3 of ‘90 for no reason at all. Only because on September 3 they didn’t go to work and they were fired. Because the goal was to economically destroy Albanian families, you know, so that they can’t find a [local] solution and they [are forced to] leave [and live] abroad. But this didn’t have an impact on my job, I not only had a lot of work, but even more [work] than usual because I had to write rebuttals, to write suits, I had to represent them.
I remember I used to represent them [people] for employment relationship issues, but also for housing issues because they [the regime] even wanted to take their [people’s] apartments. Because back then there was no housing ownership, only housing rights. Housing ownership came after ‘90 with the law to privatize apartments. At the time, the majority of Albanians had no jobs and it was very difficult [for them] to privatize their apartments. And I remember that I represented them very successfully for housing issues, but the employment relationship issues on the other hand, those cases almost never closed.
They [the authorities] took them [the cases] to Kraleva, Kragujevc, there, they had taken all of the employment relationship cases of Kosovo there because they [the authorities] had no legal support for the termination of employment relationships despite that at the time they [the authorities] brought the law for employment relationships under exceptional circumstances. Because under Article 8 of the Law of Labor for Exceptional Relations, it was stated that an employee’s work contract could be terminated without notice, if the employee missed work for two or more days in a row. It was only one day, September 3. And they couldn’t legally terminate the employment relationship for that one day. This is it.
And for this reason they wouldn’t bother to examine these cases at all. And then they brought a group of judges from Serbia and Vojvodina to help the Kosovo judiciary finish these cases, and they came but none of them [the judges] finished any important cases. Very, very rarely. There were two or three judges who did, they tried to, but it was very difficult to meet those demands.
Anita Susuri: During the ‘90s, there were lawyers who got murdered too, for example, Bajram Kelmendi was murdered…
Adem Vokshi: Bajram Kelmendi was murdered in ‘99. Mikel Marku as I said was murdered after my father… they didn’t murder Mikel Marku, a Serbian neighbor who was a cop beat him up, he beat him up really badly and then they took him to the police station and held him there for four or five days until he died. That was it.
Anita Susuri: Did you feel at risk or how did you feel during this time period? I mean, when it started initially in ‘98 with the massacre of the Jashari family, and then until the the beginning of the bombings, when Bajram Kelmendi was killed, what was this time period like? And then the war? I mean, the reaction.
Adem Vokshi: A friend of mine describes it like this, he said, “Last night,” he said, “half of the cafe was cops, the other half we were civilians and we were playing with pebbles, we were drinking and everything,” he said, “And one guy said to me,” he said, “Look,” he said, “Ukrashtica there is burning,” and “What do you want me to do about it? I can’t help” (smiles). This is it. And to tell you another thing, I don’t know, not only me, but also my wife and my children, even though they were very little at the time, we weren’t scared at all. I adhere to that principle said by that old man, “Children, I’m leaving you an amanet, I have died a hundred times until today, you only die once. Now the time to die has come. So, don’t die a hundred times.” So I didn’t die a hundred times, I will only die once. I don’t know if you understand or not.
You know why? Now I’ll tell you a… I was working on my computer, it was about 1:00. 1:30 in the morning, in January of ‘99, or February, honestly it may have been February. I don’t exactly remember. 1:30 in the morning when the door went tak, tak, tak {onomatopoeia} the patio door, at that time I was home.
Anita Susuri: In Pristina?
Adem Vokshi: No, in Mitrovica.
Anita Susuri: Ah.
Adem Vokshi: Yes, I was home and my neighbor was Lah Nimani’s brother, Mustafë Nimani, his brother. He had a two-story house and it had windows outside, you understand? And I called him on the phone, “Mustafë, did I wake you?” He said, “Yes.” He [Mustafë] was wonderful, I said, “Please look out the window, someone is knocking on my door. I want to open it because they’re telling me they’re three young guys because I talked to them. But I fear they have the police behind [them] and they might cause me trouble,” nothing else. He said, “Don’t open the door unless I tell you,” and he looked out the windows, no cops, it was only those three.
And, anyway, we [he and his family] invited them inside, I opened the door and we invited them inside, we welcomed them. The police station, you know up there at the court where it used to be, they had released them from there at around 12:00 at night [midnight]. They got them from Skenderaj and released them there [in Mitrovica], and on their way, they knocked at around ten to fifteen houses, “We knocked at ten to fifteen houses, no one opened the door.” This was the people’s fear. And then they used to tell me, “We heard the door but we didn’t dare to open it.” I dared to. Anyway, I also had that neighbor but even if I didn’t, I would’ve opened it. But since I had that solution why not use it.
And the next day one of the guys had some trouble there in Mitrovica. A gymnasium teacher, Hasan Veliqi, came to take this guy. He came to take his nephew and take him to his aunt in Vushtrria, but he [the nephew] was afraid. I said, “I’ll give you a ride there.” I got him in my car and took him to Vushtrria (laughs). Recently one of them met with my son, one of those boys, and he told him how everything happened, “Your father,” he said, “took us home back then.” The next day we gave them lunch and we escorted them home. This was the people’s mood but also my lack of fear.
I only feared one thing during ‘99, I feared for my children. Why did I fool myself into thinking that that situation would only take three or four days and he [Milošević] would accept defeat and that problem would be resolved. Not only me, but many people thought like that. But I would’ve never guessed that it would take 77 days. I went around Mitrovica for a month hiding here, hiding there with a family of four, kijamet. This is it. It was very difficult.
Anita Susuri: What did you see during that time as you went around Mitrovica? What did you see, what was it like?
Adem Vokshi: On the day of the bombings, that night, the barracks were very close. And then when the grenade fell there the children were at the neighbor’s, they climbed the wall and came to our house. And then the next night we went to our neighbor’s there and… the neighbor’s house started to burn and I called the firefighters, but they didn’t answer. I called the police, I said, “This and that, the house is burning.” They said, “My house is burning too.” “Excuse me.” There was nothing you could do. But they didn’t bother us at the house. The next day I got into my car and took my family and was on my way to Zubin Potok on that side.
The police stopped us and said, “Where are you going?” I said, “God willing, to Veli Breg.” I didn’t tell them I was going further, “Go back! I’m telling you to go back!” They didn’t even allow me to speak, because if I had spoken in Serbian I would have beat them to it, you know. But, what could I say, I went back (laughs). I took refuge at Mustafë’s sister, we only slept one night. All the houses around got burned down, all the houses got burned down, all of them, it was kijamet. And Mustafë that day… I went out to get some wood chips [to make a fire], to get some potatoes, because there was no food to eat or to cook.
And then two cops went in and broke down the patio door and went inside, I had my car there, I had a Kadett. And they asked, “Who’s in here?” I said, “My family and I.” Now, I couldn’t tell them about Mustafë because he went there to hide. But if I told them he was there too, why did he hide there? If they’d found him, they would kill him, anyway (laughs). They had guns. “Who’s inside?” “My family.” anyway they went inside, they looked around and went out. When they went out I asked, “Do you want to check in the basement?” They said, “No, no we trust you.”
But there were four of them, two remained outside, two inside. And one of them asked me, “Who are you?” I said, “I am Adem Vokshi,” what else to say. They knew me better. And he said, “A well known lawyer,” the other one asked, “Was he good or not?” (laughs). “Will you sell me your car?” I said, “No.” “Why?” I said, “Look at how the car’s floor matts have loosened up.” It really was damaged a lot, “It has loosened up and if I sold it to you like this you’d say the lawyer tricked me.” “Don’t joke around!” I said, “It doesn’t suit you,” I said, “because you won’t even be able to drive it for 200 kilometers.”
And then he agreed because when I said no {explains with hands} (laughs). They went out and in the afternoon two other Serbs came and they came wearing masks. The ones in the morning had no masks, the ones in the afternoon had them. “Who’s inside?” I said, “The owner of the house and me with my family,” and they came inside. They checked with guns like this {explains with hands}. But while leaving one of them told me that I knew him, but I didn’t dare to say I did. His Albanian was perfect. He said, “I don’t want to see you here anymore,” in Serbian. Do you know Serbian? [addresses the interviewer].
Anita Susuri: Yes.
Adem Vokshi: Anyway, I said, “Alright. Where do I go?” He said, “To Albania.” I said, “Tonight?” “No, no,” he said, “tomorrow.” “Alright, thank you!” That night all the houses around were burning. We couldn’t even sleep at the house. The next day we took the car and left to the northern part [of Mitrovia] because you couldn’t dare to go on this side [southern]. In the northern part, I had the key to my cousin’s apartment there, neighbors with SUP (laughs). I stayed there for four or five days, then they stole my car, and then I walked. We [he and his family] went to the bus station to try and leave, but that day the bridge on the way to Zubin Potok was bombed and we couldn’t go that way. And then after four or five days, [we got] on the bus to Albania.
Anita Susuri: What was that like because it’s quite far?
Adem Vokshi: I had luck, I don’t know, maybe I believe in God a lot, and doing good, good will come your way. We slept over in Zhabor [neighborhood] there with my family for one night and the next day the military kicked us out at 12:00 in the afternoon, the regular army, “Come on, leave it, go to the bus station.” We stopped at the school in Shipol [neighborhood] there, and we stayed there for one night. We found a house, we thankfully did because it started raining, rain kijamet. And the next day, a guy came there, where we had slept, and gave 200 marka to the cop and he [the cop] didn’t give him [the guy] the nice truck, but the other one. And in that truck, they told me to go hide in the back of it, “Don’t let them see you because they will cause you trouble.” Children and women in the front. The truck took us to within 3 kilometers of the border [with Albania].
On the way, they stopped him [the truck driver] at Prroni i Keq and fined him 70 marka, supposedly because there were too many people in the truck and stuff like that. But we crossed there fine, we crossed. And then we walked to the border. Then at the border, it was closed till 9:00. At 9:00 it started to rain, kijamet. [They told us,] you can’t take clothes, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. What a disgrace. All the family documents, the ID documents and all that, I put them under one of my twin’s shirts, he doesn’t know Serbian, and I told him, “Don’t speak at all. If they stop you I’m here, I’ll speak with them.”
When it started to rain like that, they started to cross the borders, “The documents?” A couple of my neighbors gave them their IDs, they took them and ripped them apart {describes with hands}, you know. “Your documents?” I said, “They took them on our way here.” “Come on, pass!” So, nothing, I saved our documents. Anyway, I saved my family, which was really good. I said to myself in my right mind knowing all this stuff, how did I end up staying here. All of my friends, “Are you planning to leave [to go abroad]?” “No way, why leave?” And the next day they’re nowhere to be found, they left before me (laughs).
Anita Susuri: Where did you stay in Albania?
Adem Vokshi: I stayed in Tirana. The first night I stayed over at a Mitrovician’s there at the arabs’ apartments and the next day… Anyway, that night we tried to contact my wife’s family because they have a house in Tirana, downtown, at the Faculty of Law there. But we didn’t know where it was or how to get there. There was a lot of fear that they wouldn’t accept us in Tirana, that they wouldn’t accept us in Durrës, that they’d take us to Vlora or what do I know. And the next day, we went out for a walk but, suddenly… we ran into a relative of my wife and they told us, they gave us directions to the house and we went there. We stayed there for about two or three days, then we found a two-room apartment to rent for 600 marka in Tirana and we paid for it for two months all at once and it was like that (laughs), what could we do.
Anita Susuri: How did you experience the news about the liberation and how did you return? Where did you return?
Adem Vokshi: It’s very interesting. My son that works with me [now], Urim, was little back then, six years old, not even six years old. When we crossed to Albania and crossed the border there, “Dad,” he said, “the flag.” “Yes, son,” I said, “we’re screwed.” Palestinians came to mind, Albanian Muhaxhers came to mind, all of them did. “We will never return here [Kosovo] again.” Something unbelievable! And they complain, having freedom is what matters. I went to Novi Pazar in ‘98 with a friend and the Bosnians used to say to me, “What do you want here? You have all the good stuff, you have cars, you have this, you have that… What else are you looking for?” “We’re looking for freedom.” Nothing matters without freedom.
Anita Susuri: How did you get back up on your feet after? How did you start your work?
Adem Vokshi: Everything I had in Peja was destroyed. Anyway, it wasn’t mine but the house was shared. In Mitrovica, the house that I had was on the ground floor, the brothers of Adem Demaçi sold it to me, and I always tease them about it. And my office was destroyed, out of about 13 thousand cases only 300-350 remained, incomplete but what I could find you know, the other ones they destroyed. I had a plethora of literature and books, they took everything. And then I uploaded them to my computer in case any of the parties needed them and some of them came to get whatever was left.
So I stayed over one night at a friend’s in Mitrovica, then when I came back from Peja two days later, there was no room left there so I stayed at another friend’s in Mitrovica. He forced me to go, but I didn’t stay long, three or four days. And then an elderly man from Gjakova, Arsim Abrashi, gave me an apartment which I had won from him when they expropriated his wealth. Not only that apartment, about three apartments, a house and all that. But he said, “Take this and” {explains with hands}. He could’ve rented it out, it was across from the municipality. He said, “You’ll stay here for one year.”
And then another year, I helped my neighbor Mustafë to rebuild his house through AKTED, back then you had to rebuild your house, and his [house] was a category four [mostly destroyed]. I had a category five, you know I had to start from scratch. They rebuilt his house and I lived there for a year. Then I bought an old house, it was kijamet. When my wife heard what house I had bought she said, “You’re not in your right mind.” What could I have done? I said, “I will fix that house and you won’t go in there,” and one of the twins said, “How could you not buy it? Where can you buy a house with three thousand marka?”
I then sold my land because that woman who sold it to me was the wife of one of my friends, he’s a catholic. I had good chats with her, and then she got married in Peja but we still talked to each-other because he died, my friend, and we always kept in touch. One of her sons is in America, her daughter is married in Postruc or, she’s married in Croatia, Zagreb.
And she said, “They’re offering me a hundred thousand euros,” that house, a hundred thousand marka, the house was for sale for a long time but no luck. It was saved for me (laughs). And she said, “For a hundred thousand I’ll sell it to you because it’s a pity for you to remain on the streets,” you know, I said, “Oh thank you a lot, but I don’t have the money,” she said, “Make only one quarter of it, my daughter and son need it,” she said, “and when you make the rest, you’ll give it to me.” I said, “Oh, like that?” “Yes.” I said, “Congratulate me.” I took out those three thousand marka and I gave it to her. I bought a house with three thousand marka. And then I slowly got back up on my feet.
They begged me to become a judge immediately after the war. They heard I was a good jurist, that I was a judge and I had helped people. There was this guy Heiner and I asked, “Will you tell me something?” I asked, “The wage is 250 marka. Yes?” I said, and I told him everything I lost, what I inherited, what I earned. My wife is an intellectual, I’m an intellectual, everything. I said, “And with 250 marka, how long will it take for me to rehabilitate?” I said, “Is there a risk if I’m a lawyer? Is it prohibited?” “No, no,” he said, “you can be.” I said, “I’m choosing to be a lawyer, I have chosen and I’ll remain a lawyer.”
And lastly I’m married. My wife is from Peja because everyone thinks she is from Mitrovica, but the women in Mitrovica back in my time didn’t want me, but I deceived her, she was a student and I married her. And I have two twins [boys] born in ‘85, a daughter born in ‘89 and my youngest son born in ‘93. My youngest son works with me as a lawyer, one of the twins is also a lawyer, but he works in Mitrovica. The other twin is in economics and works in the Prosecutor’s office in Mitrovica, but he also has a private store in which he works.
My daughter is an economist, she has a masters from the Faculty of Law. She’s currently a deputy director at Mehmet Akif school in Lipjan and she has a daughter, and she’s expecting another baby. My oldest has two daughters and a son. My second one, the twin, has two sons. They’re very mischievous, but what can you do, they’re children. My youngest son will soon have a daughter. And yes, a good and useful family to society.
Anita Susuri: Now you live in Pristina, right?
Adem Vokshi: No, I still live in Mitrovica, my wife won’t come to Pristina (laughs).
Anita Susuri: Korab, do you have any questions?
Korab Krasniqi: Yes, as a closer. Since you have experienced, how to say it, several systems, I’ll call them systems, and then in the ‘90s the Milosević regime and now you live in an independent Kosovo, which is trying to build itself into a proper state with its available capacities and the help of the international community. To ask you, what’s your point of view or how could you compare these three justice systems?
Adem Vokshi: I didn’t like any of the systems. Being forced to live in these systems is something else. Because the prior systems were despotic, they were systems that wanted to command people, they were systems that… also the socialist system, which made people dependent on income, you have a wage and a ten day vacation and eventually a cottage, yes.
The current system has its weaknesses. But look, compare the Kosovo of ‘99 and ‘98, to not say earlier, with Kosovo today, is there no change? The youth are eager to move abroad, what will they find there? I could’ve gone abroad a long time ago. Back when they murdered my father, they would’ve welcomed me abroad and [it would’ve been better] for my children and everything. They [diaspora] are building two and three story houses here for their children. They won’t even come back here themselves, let alone their children.
Kosovo is wonderful, it’s free. Now we only have to work and choose the right people in positions of power. We’ve seen that there are people being elected who are not worthy, elect the ones who are better. This is it. We have everything good. Everything.
Anita Susuri: Do you have any more questions? [addresses Korab] Thank you a lot for the interview and your contribution.
Adem Vokshi: Thank you to you as well for all the work you’re doing and all the commitment and everything, I hope you will be successful.
Anita Susuri: Thanks a lot.
Korab Krasniqi: Thank you.
